The 'micro-assault' of mispronunciation

[Jilly_in_VA]

Canadian radio host Nana aba Duncan decided a decade ago she no longer wanted to go by nicknames and instead reclaim her full Ghanaian name, pronounced Nuh-NAA-buh. She put a name pronouncer in her email signature, and patiently corrected people when they didn’t get it quite right. She got a lot of support – but she also still faces struggles.

A woman at a party insisted she could never pronounce Duncan’s full first name, laughing instead at how different it was and asking where she was from. “She really, really acted like I had just come from another country… I really felt like I was so foreign to her,” says Duncan, who has lived in Toronto for more than 40 years. At another get-together, a guest explained that her name was hard to pronounce and unilaterally reverted to ‘Nana’ instead. Then there was the co-worker who sang Duncan’s name to the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: “Na-Na-Na-BAAAAAA.” No one else’s name became a musical spectacle, just hers.

“I feel like I'm a spoil sport if I say, ‘actually, I don't think that's funny’,” says Duncan, 43. “I hate that I don't put myself first in those moments, but sometimes I think we do this to keep the peace because there are so many other things that we have to deal with and we just let those things go.”

Xian Zhao, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on ethnic name pronunciation, says that although many people don’t realise it, habitually pronouncing an unfamiliar name incorrectly is a form of implicit discrimination. It sends a message that “you are minimal”, says Zhao. “You are not important in this environment, so why should I take time and my effort to learn it?”

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210108-the-signals-we-send-when-we-get-names-wrong

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. I find purposeful mispronunciation to be so incredibly rude.

Her name is not that hard to pronounce, and it’s a beautiful name. Take five damn seconds, and learn the pronunciation.

But, I also know there are people that can’t help it. My father in law could not pronounce some names correctly. I bet I heard him say Bret Saberhagen’s name 100 different ways. Stabenhugen, Sabenhouser, Sterbendooger…

I did not want that habit to pass down, so when my kids were little, and they met someone with a difficult name, I used to purposely mispronounce the names (in private). They always corrected me. My kids are now wonderful about remembering, and using people’s proper names.

[CrispyQ]

5. It's a very personal, "in your face" act of rudeness,

if you can, but choose not to use someone's preferred name. I've never felt uncomfortable asking people how to pronounce their name correctly, even if I have to go over it a couple of times with them to get it right. And they never mind. In fact, sometimes they're amused. I try to make some kind of a word pneumonic, a word for each syllable/s. Just trying to come up with that helps you to remember. The game you played with your kids was a great way, too!

[malaise]

15. Implied privilege

and very rude - the real cancel culture

[ret5hd]

2. "...I like to call them by the wrong name...

to let them know I don't care about them." -Ron Swanson, Parks And Recreation

And no, I am not laughing at this situation. I think Ms. Duncan is exactly right.

(for explanation of my above quote, go to about 2:05 in the video)

[jimfields33]

3. Every teacher in America has to learn 40 different names

Many are mispronounced for awhile. Eventually the teacher learns them all.

The woman in the article says at a party, some had difficulty pronouncing the name. I’d imagine first few times would be hard to remember and add alcohol to the mix can add to it.

Heck I have a tough time remembering Bob after meeting him five minutes later.

But everyone should try to do better with linguistics and name pronunciation.

[Jilly_in_VA]

4. I've told this story before

but it bears repeating often. My cousin taught first and later second grade in a mostly Black school in a St. Louis "ring" suburb for decades. Her trick was to go around the room on the first day, where she'd placed each child's name on their desk, and have them say it for her (she held her attendance book and made notes). The shy ones were allowed to whisper it. She got it right after that. I suspect other teachers have used the same trick often.

[jimfields33]

7. I would definitely agree that many probably use this method

It would take awhile for me to learn every name that’s for sure.

[Torchlight]

6. She's not pointing at mere error as you allude to

She's focusing on mental laziness which is then self-defined as humorous or clever done at her expense.

I hope you one day allow yourself to see the critical difference.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. Happens To Me

I'm just a sub. I might see that class (in a big school) once or twice a year.
If I see a name where pronunciation may be debatable, I simply ask "How do you pronounce your name?"
It's not that hard to ask, rather than say it wrong & potentially hurt a kid's feeling.

[msfiddlestix]

8. my first name is mispronounced 100% of the time

by Hispanics, East Indian, Filipinos, and so on.

It's a commonly known Northern European name, but only to North American, British and European culture.

It is annoying to have it repeatedly mispronounced even when I correct the speaker, the mispronunciation is repeated.

I discourage making this yet another cultural hurdle as if it must be addressed.

[Iggo]

9. It's not hard to say people's names right.

I grew up half-white in the middle of white culture. My name’s easy, though even most Spanish speakers mispronounce my last name. But that’s because it has an unusual spelling. Once I point it out, they’re fine. But over my lifetime I’ve gone into attack mode more times than I can count to defend someone whose name was being mispronounced. Almost always, it’s mispronounced first by accident. But when called out, the mispronouncer very often starts blaming the person whose name they can’t pronounce. I’ll give one example from back when I was a teenager. A friend of mine had the last name Huerta. Monolingual white American girl pronounced it “HER-duh” and, when corrected, claimed it was too hard for “regular people” to say. I said, “Can you say ‘wear’?” She said yes. “Can you say ‘tah’?” She said yes. “Then you can say Huerta. So it’s not that hard, at all.” The only really hard part is not losing my temper while I’m doing it…lol. But I’ve found over time that it really works better when I stay calm.

(EDIT: I’m making myself sound real mature in that story, but I bet I was more of a dick about it.)

[Jilly_in_VA]

11. Mine gets mispronounced all the time too

When it's on the phone, 99% of the time I know it's a spam call. Otherwise I just correct them, sigh, and go on. My birth name even got screwed up more than once, and it's a relatively common, English-derivative one. When I was little, I came home from Bible school at our neighborhood church with a name tag that had both of my names messed up, but I like that so much that I've kept that as a nom de plume.

[BlackSkimmer]

10. My sister has a nickname I bestowed on her when we were both children.

Her entire life people could not get it right despite the fact it’s simply a hard G instead of a soft G. A simple two syllable word.

Nothing to do with her heritage, background, or anything. She finally went back to her real name because it annoyed her so much.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Oddly, it seems to be pronounced 2 different ways in Ghana

"nann-ah-abb-ba" for a Ghanaian TV personality

"nu-NAA-ba" as in the OP, in this song:

It seems strange to spell it the same way if it's pronounced differently.

[RobinA]

14. I Dunno

I have a German last name that is mispronounced 100% of the time, and the correct pronunciation is Anglicized. I just have too damn many things to be furious about these days to really care. My sister has a Scandinavian married name that is mispronounced 110% of the time. It happens and you move on. People have a hard time with stuff they find "different."

[Iggo]

17. This is mostly about people insisting on saying it wrong even after being corrected.

I think…lol.

(Maybe I just made it about that. )

[boston bean]

16. My name is constantly mispronounced and misspelled.